Italian stylist Giorgio Armani was on Monday awarded the 'Leonardo' prize, an honour given each year to entrepreneurs judged to have done the most for Italy's image and prestige in the world.
Armani is now an "icon of Italian fashion" all around the globe and the head of a business worth 1.4 billion euros a year, the jury said during a ceremony at the presidential Quirinal Palace in Rome.
As 2006 Leonardo winner, Armani follows in the footsteps of figures such as architect Renzo Piano, the late Fiat patriarch Gianni Agnelli and clothing manufacturer Gilberto Benetton.
The Leonardo prize is like "the Oscar of Italian business", according to Umberto Vattani, head of the Italian Foreign Trade Institute.
The jury praised him for for creating an immediately recognisable style in which "elegance and perfection combine" in an "entirely Italian" product.
Despite making garments frequently donned in order to signal that the wearer belongs to a glamorous elite, Armani has always made a distinction between fashion and status.
"People who worry about status symbols are volatile. Later, they'll move on to something else they consider important," he once said.
The 72-year-old designer was unable to receive the award from President Giorgio Napolitano because of what his press aide said were "unavoidable commitments" which obliged him to return to Milan.
